Ten Little Inheritants.

This week's VHS is a recent acquisition in Emmanuel Kervyn's 1988 horror Rabid Grannies.

A birthday party for two old ladies (Catherine Ayemerie & Caroline Braeckman) turns gruesome when they are possessed by demons and start knocking off their greedy relatives.

Rabid Grannies was a strange beast because it was a four European country co-production that was released this side of the pond by Troma Entertainment. It was a good fit for them, as the subject matter screams the company that brought us titles like The Toxic Avenger and Surf Nazis Must Die. However, with the foreign locales, dubbed dialogue and over-the-top gore, the hybrid actually felt more along the lines of Lamberto Bava or Braindead-era Peter Jackson.

It is amusing to note that a more appropriate title would've been Demonic Grannies, as the two grand matriarchs were possessed by a evil artifact given to them by a shunned relative and not infected by a four-legged creature. I'm guessing, in a practice that was popular in the eighties, this movie started as a title (or poster art) and worked its way back from that.

Rabid Grannies takes an unusually long time setting up its characters. That's not to say there's anything deep about them, there's just a large number so it just took a good chunk of time introducing them all. You've got the unhappy couple with kids, the magnate with the trophy wife, the bad boy and the lesbian couple for which I wonder if the filmmakers were trying to be progressive or exploitative. My money's on the latter. It was over a half-hour before the gore started flying, but it was very entertaining once it did..

I must admit there was a good deal of it, much more than I would've expected. I imagine that is why – save the catchy title – Rabid Grannies hasn't been forgotten. Everyone was fair game and most were cut to pieces. Even the ending was something that, again, echoed the younger Bava. You know, this could've been one of the umpteen Demons sequels and no one would have batted a gouged out eye.

This was a good pickup for Troma, as it matched their mandate, but also branched them out from the urban American titles they were known for.

ZZZombie Lake

While having a conversation about Jean Rollin (as one does) last weekend, I realized that I hadn't yet watched my Wizard VHS of his 1981 flick Zombie Lake. This has since been rectified.

A group of murdered Nazis spring up from a local pond to reap revenge on the townsfolk that ambushed them many years before.

During said discussion, I described his filmography as “running the gamut between Hammer art house and soft core porn” for which Zombie Lake feels closer to the latter. It sure doesn't waste any time in that regard, as a young nymph almost immediately strips before going swimming in the titular lake/barely disguised swimming pool before being pulled under by a zombie. I'd have felt bad for her if she hadn't literally pulled down the no swimming sign earlier.

A little history. I first became acquainted with Rollin back when the Scream channel was a thing back in the aughts. They used to play double bills of his films late on Friday nights, but I actually had to start taping them to watch the next morning because though his work is pretty, it is often like cinematic Ny-Quil. Zombie Lake was no different, as the first half was barely a movie and more of a thin construct to get from one nude scene to another and as I'm typing this I'm wondering why this sounds like a complaint... Eventually the essence of a story emerges, but it's more of a sloppy patchwork of better pictures – think 2000 Maniacs without the gore or personality.

Jean Rollin's Shock Wav-- I mean, Zombie Lake!

I read that Rollin was embarrassed by this movie, having been a last minute replacement for Jess Franco so I guess it was doomed from the start. I wager most of the budget went to the Nazi uniforms, vehicles and flamethrowers and everything else was just fly-by-night. Did I mention there were a lot of naked ladies in this? Because there are. If only they had some decent gore to go with it, they'd have really had something to hang their hat on here, but sadly it was of the green and red paint variety.

Only thing missing from this scene is a flower...

Apart from the sky high skin ratio, Zombie Lake was a snooze-fest. However, I came away from this with one burning question about that scene with the frolicking basketball team. In 1981, did Europeans (or at least the people who dubbed this movie) not know what basketball was?

In Sickness & In Death...

This week's VHS is a random title from the stack with a semi-familiar coverbox, Patrick Jamain's 1985 thriller Honeymoon aka Lune de Miel.

To avoid deportation, Cécile (French starlet Nathalie Baye) pays for an arranged marriage to stay in the country while her incarcerated lover awaits trial. Unfortunately, her “husband” Zachary (John Shea) tracks her down and wants more than she bargained for.

Despite being somewhat misrepresented by its coverbox (a common practice during the home video boom that I'll never wise up to) Honeymoon was an interesting view for a few reasons. A French/Canadian co-production set in New York, we actually do get a lot of cool footage of vintage Big Apple, even if I suspect most of the interiors were split between Montreal & Paris.

I was immediately struck by the setup, as the opening credits feature the lower half of a woman in a red dress (one of seemingly only two outfits she wears throughout the entire film) running through the streets of New York. I wonder if this wasn't some sort of nod to Gene Wilder's Woman in Red released the previous year. Anyway, at the end of the scene Baye, now in full frame, runs by a live band in the street playing the exact song that I'd been listening to the entire sequence. I was like wait, what? Sadly, this was the only time that something like this happened which made it all the more conspicuous.

As I explained before, Cécile's Plan B to stay in the country was to pay for a (presumably illegal) arranged marriage. This was not a well thought out course of action, as she literally just randomly pointed to a file on the desk of the broker (played by Mulder's father Peter Donat) and went “this one.” I guess this process was a thing back in the day? Hell, maybe it still is. Normally, these couples never met apparently, but Zachary had other ideas.

It was the dynamic between the two early on that held my interest, as given her situation Cécile reacted pretty rationally. It was only when he later conveniently came to her aid during an altercation with a would-be date rapist (played by Canuck oh-that-guy Alf Humphreys no less) that she started to warm up to him. A few more bad (and equally unlikely) choices later and well, she was in deep shit.

Nathalie Baye as Cécile in Honeymoon

I have to go back to this whole arranged marriage process though, because there's a scene where the broker comes to her later is like, “yeah, so that guy, you picked the newest file on my table and I hadn't properly vetted him. He could be trouble.” Now, that this guy was listed with the Better Business Bureau or anything, but first off... Why the fuck was this guy's file in the list if he wasn't checked out? And why did you not say something at the time?! Not cool, dude.

In a way, Honeymoon was a little ahead of the curve. Obviously, Brian De Palma had been making sexually charged thrillers for a while by this point – Will Fruett's 1984 picture Bedroom Eyes comes to mind as well – but they were largely racier renditions of Alfred Hitchcock's ouevre. Even stuff like 1981's Body Heat seemed more rooted in American film noir. Honeymoon feels like the type of thrillers that exploded after the popularity of Fatal Attraction in 1987 where a character made a bad decision that immediately came back to haunt them.

John Shea as Zachary in Honeymoon

Honeymoon was not what was I was expecting, but it was still a decent watch with a unique hook and lots of great New York flavour. By the mid-nineties, there were literally hundreds of movies like this one on video store shelves so it's neat to see one of the progenitors.

Edit - Just after I posted this I discovered Alf Humphreys passed away the same day I watched this movie. Rest in peace, you were a ubiquitous performer and it was great to see you at the My Bloody Valentine reunion in 2009.

Vengeance Is Hers!

This year's Midnight Madness experience continued with Coralie Fargeat's French thriller Revenge.

While tagging along on a guys hunting getaway Jen (Matilda Lutz) is raped and left for dead. She soon returns with only one thing on her mind.

I have to admit it took me a considerable amount of time to clock into Revenge, but once I turned the corner I ended up really digging it. Dark comedy is not something (at least as outlandishly as it is portrayed here) I am used to seeing in rape revenge movies, but I was able to embrace it once I realized that the far-fetched and increasingly cartoonish nature of the piece was all part of the plan.

I was equally intrigued and confounded by Fargeat wanting to tackle this subject matter – in her debut in the chair no less – but I can see now that she indeed brought a unique perspective, even just in the way that the inciting incident was presented. It was not lingered on or made to be inherently titillating. In addition to that though, she soaked the movie in a very kinetic style even before the peyote made an appearance.

Matilda Lutz as Jen in Revenge

Fargeat also took the opportunity to lace the picture with some interesting symbolism and metaphor. As she pointed out in the Q&A, her goal was to “take someone who appeared weak and transform them into something powerful” and the lead actress Matilda Lutz performed this action extremely well. Sauntering out of the helicopter at the film's opening like a veritable Lolita, she was beaten down to nothing and then rose from the ashes like a Phoenix (literally) ending up a thousand degrees from where she was.

This all ramped up to an intense last act that contained two wonderfully shot chase sequences using a multitude of techniques. Revenge was lensed in the Moroccan desert (but really could be set anywhere considering the both French and English characters) and she utilized that location to the fullest.

Lutz (left) and Director Coralie Fargeat.

Up until now, the ugly and visceral space of the rape revenge genre has been one dominated by men – this could also be said of the entire Midnight Madness programme though following Roxanne Benjamin and Julia Ducournau's contributions the previous two years perhaps change is afoot – but Fargeat has cleverly subverted this by offering up something that at first may seem puzzling and unwanted, but I wager you'll feel differently once the credits roll.

New Blood At Midnight.

Earlier today, this year's crop of titles for TIFF's Midnight Madness lineup were announced. 2017 is particularly significant because this is programmer Peter Kuplowsky's inaugural kick at the can after Colin Geddes - a man who has been Toronto's premiere genre tastemaker since the late nineties - left earlier this year.

Colin Geddes (left) with Peter Kuplowsky at MM 2015.

There are some really awesome looking titles this year, including David Bruckner's adaptation of the Adam Nevill novel, The Ritual and the newest from the celebrated duo of Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani's Let The Corpses Tan.

Canadian surrealism is the order of the day in Seth A. Smith's The Crescent and from France comes a searing debut from Coralie Forgeat named Revenge.

Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz in Revenge.

Midnight also brings the star power with Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair in Mom and Dad and Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter and Don Johnson in Brawl in Cell Block 99.

For the full lineup and a great interview with Kuplowsky about his picks and filling Colin's very large shoes, click here. 

I am pretty Goddamn excited!!!

Désolé

Thanks to AMC's horror streaming service Shudder, I was able to check out Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury's 2014 effort Among The Living last week.

While screwing around in an abandoned film studio, three delinquents become the targets of a pair of psychos when they come across their latest victim.

This film had eluded me for sometime, as after it premiered at Fantasia in 2014, it seemed to disappear into the ether. Now I know why. Mon dieu, this is a frustrating movie! With a premise like this, it could have been a home run, but I found myself sighing my way through most of this thing.

Horror movies about kids in peril are my jam and that's what originally drew me to this. Imagine Tobe Hooper's Funhouse if the bratty kid didn't fuck off home halfway through the film. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, the writers forgot that you also have to not make them complete jerks. I didn't give a shit about these brats. I'm all for truancy, but not so much the arson and golden showers. Maybe the latter is a French thing I don't know.

Les enfants Victor (Théo Fernandez), Dan (Damien Ferdel) & Tom (Zacharie Chasseriaud)

However, the frustrating part was just the parade of bad decisions made by the characters. Even by horror movie standards, there was a staggering amount. One of the kids, who up to this point has shown no positive qualities whatsoever, decides to charge in and save the girl instead of easily running away to find help. It's just lazy writing and it happens often. 2011's Livid, Bustillo & Maury's previous work, was nonsensical, but at least it took place in a house that limited the characters' options. Livid also had its moments, whereas even Among The Living's best bits didn't feel particularly fresh. The clown sequence wasn't even new when Amusement did it almost ten years ago.

Apart from all this, it's like Bustillo & Maury are going soft. Almost half of the violence happens offscreen and due to all the plot inconsistencies, it's really hard to care by the time you hit the third act. I mean, it's not all bad. The score by Raphaël Gesqua was rather unusual, some of the set designs were on par with that of Livid and it was nice to see – albeit briefly – Chloé Coulloud and Béatrice Dalle again. Although I now feel like when they use Dalle, it's less a fun cameo, as it is them saying 'hey guys, remember when we were good?'

When I saw Livid at TIFF, I remember thinking, good for them for not being like some of their other countrymen and diving into the first Hollywood picture they were offered. They eventually made that leap with the upcoming Leatherface movie and I can't help but feel like, at this point, it may be the best thing for them. I'll guess we'll see.

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Hello all. I got some really cool stuff to trumpet this week, so let's get right to it.

Give Them Your Monies.

First up, I wanted to plug two current IndieGogo campaigns. Ten years ago, Scott Glosserman gifted us with his little meta-slasher Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Since then, he has been trying to get a sequel off the ground and is most recently using the momentum of this anniversary to take one last stab(!) at it with a limited edition comic book series.

They are currently at 75% of their goal, so if you'd like to contribute, click here.

I also wanted to let you know that the guys behind Harvest Lake and Plank Face have a new project coming up in the tradition of the space sex comedies of yore like Beach Babes from Beyond and Earth Girls Are Easy. It is called Space Babes From Outer Space and is currently taking Blu-ray pre-orders.

To get your very own copy reserved, click here.

Clocking In With Clay.

Greg McLean's newest flick The Belko Experiment released this weekend and clay-mation guru Lee Hardcastle has celebrated the occasion with four mini-ads.

I saw this film last year at TIFF and its description of Battle Royale meets Office Space is about as apt as it gets. Check it out if you can.

Works of Art.

I just wanted to lead you out with some great art from the week. Matthew Therrien was recently commissioned to do some posters for the limited theatrical release of Julia Ducournau's Raw. 

I love that piece and would gladly put it on my wall. You can also see the two variants here. For the softcover release of Grady Hendrix's terrific book My Best Friend's Exorcism, artist Hugh Fleming was brought on to make this new cover.

I love the eighties CYOA vibe of that cover. If you haven't read the book (or Hendrix's previous work Horrorstör) you should definitely get on that!

Alright kiddies. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring and to say I am awaiting it with open arms is an understatement.

Best Horror of 2016

Here we are at the finish line of a year that if you're like me probably glad to see the ass-end of. So many shitty things in the news that it's hard to comprehend them all. I wish things had been better because for me personally, it was a pretty good year. My second short film Lively scored Canadian distribution and I produced two more that will hopefully see the light of day in 2017. I finished my long-gestating feature script and joined the programming teams of three different film festivals. Not too shabby. But we're here to talk movies...

It has been an up-and-down year and if I'm honest, a lot of the most resonant pieces of genre I've ingested have been outside of film (Limetown, Life Is Strange, Inside, Black Mirror, Channel Zero), but that's not to say there weren't some fantastic horror movies released. I would normally offer up five titles, but since I put The Witch on 2015's list, I can only nominate four that went above and beyond.

Raw
France, Dir: Julia Ducournau

Bold and veracious, this deserved every bit of praise it received at this year's Midnight Madness. Putting aside the circus of the premiere's “medical emergencies” its importance to the genre should not be overlooked. Using the platform of a coming-of-age film, Raw is every bit as evocative as modern classics Let The Right One In and Ginger Snaps.

Under The Shadow
Iranian/UK, Dir: Babak Anvari

This Persian powerhouse really took me by surprise when I saw it back in April. The comparisons to Jennifer Kent's The Babadook are valid, but I would propose that Anvari's film is even better pound-for-pound as it relies less on its production design to deliver the creeps. As if the backdrop of war-torn Iran wasn't unsettling enough, the addition of a supernatural element leads to almost unbearable amounts of tension. This is a terrific piece of horror filmmaking.

The Invitation
USA, Dir: Karyn Kusama

I adore this movie and have not seen suspense this well utilized in a long time. This movie took something as benign as a dinner party and through sharp writing and pace managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. I knew the what, but my anticipation of the when, why and how kept me razor focused. I'm so impressed by how well this movie is put together, as even something as small as where someone stood during a scene caused me so much anxiety.

Train To Busan
South Korea, Dir: Yeon Sang-ho

Let's all admit it. We're all a little bored of zombies now that they've passed their saturation point. Yet even despite this, Train To Busan still manages to be all kinds of awesome. There's an energy to this movie that you can feel when you watch it with a crowd. While it's true that the unique location provides some freshness, it's also the colourful characters (and there are a lot of them) that really give life to this movie. I think you may be as surprised as I was by how much heart it has -- where did all these feels come from???

Honourable Mentions

If you had said to me a year ago, “Hey Jay, your best of list next year is going to include a Polish musical adaptation of The Little Mermaid” I'd have asked what you were smoking and if I could have some. However, that is absolutely the case. Agnieszka Smoczynska's The Lure is tremendous. Even on a second viewing I was amazed by how much confidence and swagger Smoczynska shows in her debut! The Lure is an absolute joy!

This year, I finally got to see The Void. It was thankfully exactly what I was hoping for. It rose beyond homage to actually exist as one of those crazy creature fests we grew up watching in the eighties. I'm extremely proud of Steve Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie for what they accomplished here.

I was glad to lay my eyeballs on some cool indies this year, most notably Perry Blackshear's They Look Like People and Billy O'Brien's I Am Not A Serial Killer. Both were able to portray mental illness in a tangible and non-sensationalized way while weaving some fine storytelling.

I was also really impressed with 10 Cloverfield Lane. Dan Trachtenberg directed the shit out of this movie. His three leads (John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr. - what a year for that guy with Hush and The Belko Experiment also on his 2016 resume) put in some of the best performances this year in my opinion. Say what you want about where the movie eventually goes, but this was a super taut thriller.

Lastly, I just wanted to bring up what a solid year it was for genre-related documentaries. In addition to the uber-creepy Beware the Slenderman, we also had a pair of great docs about the medium itself in The Frankenstein Complex and 24 x 36.

Moving onto the negative side of things, I am afraid I saw an unusually large number of things I didn't care for this year like the mind-numbingly dumb Yoga Hosers, the mind-numbingly gross The Greasy Strangler and that unconvincing not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is bore Safe Neighbourhood. For the latter, I'm not usually in the minority when it comes to these things, but now I get the mindset of those people who sat in the corner and rolled their eyes at the praise heaped on Cabin In The Woods and You're Next. Except those two movies were awesome. Safe 'Hood can ess a dee.

However, nothing came close to my dislike for Mickey Keating's Darling. It is a mess in concept, in tone and almost everything else. It has been a while since I've seen something so unapologetically pretentious and I'm not having any of it.

So, that's another three-sixty-five down. Have a great New Year and I'll see you back here next week to rundown all the horror goodies coming up in 2017. 

They're Back, Baby!

Midnight Madness continued on Monday with Julia Ducournau's first solo effort, Raw.

After being forced to eat meat during a hazing ritual at her first week at veterinary school, vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) begins developing deep carnivorous urges.

During the 00's, horror fans were blessed with a series of films collectively referred to as The New French Extremity that included such nerve-shredding titles as High Tension (2003), Inside (2007) and Martyrs (2008). Then they seemed to fall away, just as the Spaniards took their turn as the darlings of modern horror. Well, after seeing Raw, I can say the French are now back with a vengeance.

Raw has been described as both feminist and veganist, but I feel those labels are too narrow. This is a coming of age film. Much like films such as We Are What We Are and Ginger Snaps, Raw had a grounded and introspective quality to it that was so incredibly well orchestrated. The subject matter was both primal and sexual, which elicited genuine reactions from the crowd. You could feel it in the air and it gave the film's title all that much more meaning.

Garance Marillier as Justine in Raw.

Some viewers may have felt a little too much, as I'm sure you all heard about the pass-outs and ambulances. The PR was quick to jump on that and I can corroborate, as one of the affected was sitting a few seats over from me. Raw was gory and gross, with many wince-tastic moments, but I'd be surprised if it was the visuals alone that caused the kind of thing I saw – they were more like seizures than pass-outs. I can't explain it, but it was like there was some other variable at play that night. It was a very strange experience.

The highlight of Raw – apart from the awesomely tactile F/X work by Olivier Afonso, the man responsible for Inside's nightmarish splatter – was the fantastic and fully committed performance by Garance Marillier. Ducournau said during the Q&A that she has been working with Marillier for several years now and they have developed a creative shorthand. This was immediately evident onscreen, as Marillier was fearless and brilliantly calculated in every stage of her character's evolution.

Director Julia Ducournau.

It is one thing to say that a movie was made for the Midnight Madness audience, as was the case with this year's opener, The Belko Experiment, but it's another thing entirely to make a film that defines the programme. Raw is the kind of work that keeps the spirit of Midnight Madness alive and away from marginalization and mediocrity. Ducournau's film is bold and veracious, possessing an energy that is unique to the cinema from her corner of the globe. Don't ever change!

Seul à la Maison

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! Let me tell you all about a fantastic Christmas movie that not a lot of people know about - I sure didn't until recently by way of the LBFS. Behold, the 1989 French film 3615 Code Père Noël.

I'm here to tell you that when I saw this screened downtown last week, everyone was a little floored by it. It wasn't just the insane subject matter, but also that the movie was actually as good as that f*cking trailer.

Père Noël aka Game Over is an exceptionally well made movie. The marvellous production design and the kinetic way in which director René Manzor films it is really something. The world created is at times fantastical - you will wonder how such a house could exist - but the relationship between Thomas (Alain Lalanne) and his grandfather (Louis Ducreux) keeps the movie well grounded. And due to its European origins, it is not shackled by the usual Hollywood conventions. Bad things happen, and the best case scenario for our little protagonist is a wicked case of PTSD.

Thomas (Alain Lalanne) ready for action in Game Over.

One might ask how a film like this could've been made considering the amount of peril Thomas (the character and the actor portraying him) is exposed to here. Well, it becomes clearer when you learn said actor is the director's son. I wonder how many times the words, “don't worry, he's fine” were uttered on set. Hell, man. I say we need to be getting back to these kind of narratives, like the awesome stuff Henry Thomas was doing in the mid-eighties like Cloak & Dagger and The Quest. The only good example of this I've seen recently was Cop Car.

But anyway, if this premise seems familiar to you, you're not alone. I believe the filmmakers tried to sue the makers of Home Alone when it was released just a year later. I think the crux of their argument was that Home Alone writer John Hughes had been vacationing in Paris during Game Over's theatrical run. Who can say? Regardless, I'm so glad there's a French R-rated version of Home Alone out there. It warms the cockles of my black, black heart.

Art by Sagan Lee.

Sadly, there hasn't been a release of this - maybe 20th Century Fox had it buried! - which is a damn shame. This movie not only deserves to be seen, but also cleaned up to fully show off its great cinematography and set design. Are you listening Scream Factory???

A Horse Of A Familiar Cover

Horsehead, last year's Parisian psycho sexual thriller (God I love that phrase) from director Romain Basset releases on Blu-ray tomorrow.

When Jessica (Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux) returns to her childhood home for her grandmother's funeral, she is stricken with a fever that plunges her in a dream world that may unlock secrets from her past.

Horsehead came to my attention this year when it was picked up for Canadian distribution by Black Fawn. All I really knew about it was inspired by the classic Italian horrors of Dario Argento and Mario Bava, so I was going in fairly cold when I popped into my PS3.

I dug this film. Knowing of the Euro-horror influences, it didn't take me long to clock into the tone they were going for. Steeped in dream logic, I felt the world Basset created within was very well realized. In structure, Horsehead reminded me a little of Bernard Rose's Paperhouse in that Jessica is bedridden by fever and the tale mostly unfolds with her dream world. In terms of style, even without forewarning, the references to seventies Euro-horror were obvious. There were some shots that looked like they were ripped straight from Suspiria, which makes sense considering the protagonist in that film (coincidentally played by “Jessica” Harper) also spends a good amount of time in a drug-induced stupor.

Despite my shitty screencaps, I assure you they are both the same shade of red.

I think what I most appreciated about Horsehead was that even though so much of it took place in a dream world, it still remained, for the most part, coherent. It pays tribute to the films that came before, but also forges its own way. I feel this is what I was missing from the past works of Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani (Amer, Strange Colour) in that they had a tremendous grasp of the aesthetic, but it stopped there. I'm not saying that Euro-horror ever gave priority to narrative, but Basset offered a lot more to work with than Cattet & Forzani ever have.

No, Horsehead is more than just an imprint. It goes beyond atmosphere. It has wonderful little character moments, much like the early Argento gialli had. It was wonderful to see significant horror figures like Lucio Fulci muse Catriona MacColl and Philipe Nahon (the lumbering maniac form 2003's High Tension) show up here. I also can't go any further without mentioning the rather striking lead actress, Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux. The role was pretty demanding, physically and emotionally, and she pulled it off in enchanting fashion.

Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux as Jessica in Horsehead.

I really can't overstate how gorgeous this film looks though. It has some of the best lighting I've seen in a good while, and the production design is top notch. I mean, some of it had to do with their location, but the interior stuff was incredibly layered, as well. I thought the music was solid, save for one jarring sequence where it felt like Skrillex showed up in the mixing booth one afternoon and took over. It feels at odds with the rest of the score.

For such a small affair, the Blu-ray package itself offers more than the usual I was happy to find. There is an hour-long documentary included, which gives you an idea of how dynamic the shoot was. I was quite impressed with all the crew and equipment they were able to wrangle, considering the director mentioned several times it was “made with friends for no money.” I wager this is hyperbole, as one does not come out the other side with something so polished, if that were the case.

On the Artsploitation Films release, the disc also includes four of Basset's earlier short films, my favourite of which was Remy, about the bond between grandson and grandfather.

Euro-horror revivalism is a thing that has been going on for a few years now and I think Horsehead is one of the better I've seen. It uses that era's familiar palette as a base, but goes beyond mere mimicry to weave a captivating and surreal mystery.

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Hey all. Well, the clocks are now turned ahead, so things are looking up on this side of The Wall. More sun, means more heat, which means less bone-chilling,ball-shrivelling cold. Hallelujah!

Vive La France.

Here's a trailer for a cool looking French film that premiered at Fantastic Fest last year called Horsehead.

Though the trailer isn't new, I bring it up because Horsehead was recently picked up for distribution in Canada by Black Fawn Films, so hopefully I'll be getting a crack at this visually stunning flick this May.

Tape Heads.

Check out this cool book from Tom Hodge of The Dude Designs (take a moment to check out his site, because he's pretty great).

This is a collection of over two-hundred and forty covers from the VHS era with a forward from Mondo's Justin Ismael. What makes this book even more special it is an exploration of VHS art from the UK, so a good deal of them will not be familiar to those of us this side of the pond.

VHS Video Cover Art is currently available for pre-order through Amazon for release May 28th.

Don't Use The Good China.

Here's another example that anything can be re-appropriated for more horrifying means. Check out these pieces from Israeli ceramic sculptor Ronit Baranga.

This rattles my brain. It's like that test where it's hard to read off the names of colours, because the words are printed in a different colour that the word (“red” in yellow and so on). Baranga has tapped into that, as dishes are not supposed to have mouths in them;

“The useful, passive, tableware can now be perceived as an active object, aware of itself and its surroundings – responding to it. It does not allow to be taken for granted, to be used. It decides on its own how to behave in the situation.”

Weeeeeeird. To see the rest of the set, click here.